Originally written on July 18, 2018. Never posted – not sure why I didn’t!
I had such high expectations to document our home search and buying process through this blog and I completely dropped the ball. Buying a house is HARD, y’all! It consumes SO much time, causes SO much anxiety and is SO.EXPENSIVE. Maybe I’ll be able to recount the 30-day whirlwind and do a post, but in the meantime, let me just say this…your down payment is nothing. You may afford your down (which we had in the bank, thanks to incredibly disciplined saving since we got married), but it doesn’t cover closing costs, inspections, whatever pertinent touch ups your home may need (unless it’s brand spankin’ new) and furniture. Ohhhhh lawwwdy, furniture! Rugs, drapes, dining table, appliances, couches…all of it. Steven and I both came from hand-me-down furnished places and since this was our first home, I wanted it to be a representation of us! I would tell people once we moved into our house, that’s when the big spending happened. Every transaction was $1,000+ and I would wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare that we ran out of money and had to foreclose within our first month. We didn’t even have a mortgage payment our first month – hah! Paranoia at its finest.
Okay, if anyone is in this process or considering, you bring the Xanax and I’ll bring my sage advice (for the record, I’ve never taken a Xanax, Mom!).
It’s been six months of living in this house. It definitely feels like our home (we even did an in-home session with the amazing Brittany Gilbert who I met on Instagram!) and I’m so excited about making the time to get back into writing.
Every time we plop on our massive, 0% interest-financed-couch, turn on the TV that rests on our midcentury Wayfair TV stand and bask in those moments of doing nothing, I’m reminded that it was all worth it!
delight & dwell 